Posts Tagged ‘The Wizard of Oz’

Maurice Tourneur‘s 1918 production of The Blue Bird feels a long way from Walsh’s Five Points. This adaptation of Maurice Maeterlinck‘s 1908 play, is realized by the French director for Adolph Zukor‘s Famous Players-Lasky in fantastic style. Tytyl and Mytyl are a brother and sister living up in a snow-covered village that’s located somewhere between Hansel and Gretel. Across the way lives a sick child and her mannish-looking mother. Down the road are “The Rich Children.” After the kids refuse to let the sick girl adopt their pet bird, they recieve a night visit from a fairy. The fairy brings their surroundings to life and charges Tytyl (Robin Macdougall) and Mytyl (Tula Belle) to find the bluebird of happiness.

Hitchcock went to great lengths to ensure that audiences were genuinely surprised by the infamous shower scene, which abruptly halts the Janet Leigh plotline and switches to the main act. He even went so far as to enforce a ‘no late entry’ policy. No one would have suspected that Hitchcock would kill off the top-billing actress only part way through. Although it happened because of scheduling conflicts, for the trailer he ended up filming a different actress – Vera Miles – being killed, which only confused people further. More of a good-natured deception that a true hoax – Hitchcock was pretty much doing the audience a favour.

The announcement came after The Weinstein Co. purchased the stage and screen rights to Gerald Clarke’s biography Get Happy! The Life of Judy Garland. Garland is infamous for her “I’m only smiling on the outside” life. Groomed as a star from childhood, she found fame with Mickey Rooney in the Andy Hardy movies, was Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, then became a by-word for tragedy through a very public disintegration. Hooked on diet drugs and booze, she made occasional phoenix-like comebacks in stage shows. She also became one of the first modern gay icons … Her death is often given as an indirect cause of the 1969 Stonewall riots.(more…)